Low-key departure as pope steps down and hides away

source: www.reuters.com

(Reuters) - Pope Benedict slips quietly from the world stage on Thursday after a private last goodbye to his cardinals and a short flight to a country palace to enter the final phase of his life "hidden from the world".

In keeping with his shy and modest ways, there will be no public ceremony to mark the first papal resignation in six centuries and no solemn declaration ending his nearly eight-year reign at the head of the world's largest church.

His last public appearance will be a short greeting to residents and well-wishers at Castel Gandolfo, the papal summer residence south of Rome, in the late afternoon after his 15-minute helicopter hop from the Vatican.

When the resignation becomes official at 8 p.m. Rome time (02.00 p.m. EST), Benedict will be relaxing inside the 17th century palace. Swiss Guards on duty at the main gate to indicate the pope's presence within will simply quit their posts and return to Rome to await their next pontiff.

Avoiding any special ceremony, Benedict used his weekly general audience on Wednesday to bid an emotional farewell to more than 150,000 people who packed St Peter's Square to cheer for him and wave signs of support.

With a slight smile, his often stern-looking face seemed content and relaxed as he acknowledged the loud applause from the crowd.

"Thank you, I am very moved," he said in Italian. His unusually personal remarks included an admission that "there were moments ... when the seas were rough and the wind blew against us and it seemed that the Lord was sleeping".

CARDINALS PREPARE THE FUTURE

Once the chair of St Peter is vacant, cardinals who have assembled from around the world for Benedict's farewell will begin planning the closed-door conclave that will elect his successor.

One of the first questions facing these "princes of the Church" is when the 115 cardinal electors should enter the Sistine Chapel for the voting. They will hold a first meeting on Friday but a decision may not come until next week.

The Vatican seems to be aiming for an election by mid-March so the new pope can be installed in office before Palm Sunday on March 24 and lead the Holy Week services that culminate in Easter on the following Sunday.

In the meantime, the cardinals will hold daily consultations at the Vatican at which they discuss issues facing the Church, get to know each other better and size up potential candidates for the 2,000-year-old post of pope.

There are no official candidates, no open campaigning and no clear front runner for the job. Cardinals tipped as favorites by Vatican watchers include Brazil's Odilo Scherer, Canadian Marc Ouellet, Ghanaian Peter Turkson, Italy's Angelo Scola and Timothy Dolan of the United States.

BENEDICT'S PLANS

Benedict, a bookish man who did not seek the papacy and did not enjoy the global glare it brought, proved to be an energetic teacher of Catholic doctrine but a poor manager of the Curia, the Vatican bureaucracy that became mired in scandal during his reign.

He leaves his successor a top secret report on rivalries and scandals within the Curia, prompted by leaks of internal files last year that documented the problems hidden behind the Vatican's thick walls and the Church's traditional secrecy.

After about two months at Castel Gandolfo, Benedict plans to move into a refurbished convent in the Vatican Gardens, where he will live out his life in prayer and study, "hidden to the world", as he put it.

Having both a retired and a serving pope at the same time proved such a novelty that the Vatican took nearly two weeks to decide his title and form of clerical dress.

He will be known as the "pope emeritus," wear a simple white cassock rather than his white papal clothes and retire his famous red "shoes of the fisherman," a symbol of the blood of the early Christian martyrs, for more pedestrian brown ones.

(Reporting By Tom Heneghan; editing by Philip Pullella and Giles Elgood)

China says U.S. routinely hacks Defense Ministry websites

source: www.reuters.com

(Reuters) - Two major Chinese military websites, including that of the Defense Ministry, were subject to about 144,000 hacking attacks a month last year, almost two-thirds of which came from the United States, the ministry said on Thursday.

This month a U.S. computer security company said that a secretive Chinese military unit was likely behind a series of hacking attacks mostly targeting the United States, setting off a war of words between Washington and Beijing.

China denied the allegations and said it was the victim.

It has now provided some details for the first time of the alleged attacks from the United States.

"The Defense Ministry and China Military Online websites have faced a serious threat from hacking attacks since they were established, and the number of hacks has risen steadily in recent years," said ministry spokesman Geng Yansheng.

"According to the IP addresses, the Defense Ministry and China Military Online websites were, in 2012, hacked on average from overseas 144,000 times a month, of which attacks from the U.S. accounted for 62.9 percent," he said.

The comments were made at a monthly news conference, which foreign reporters are not allowed to attend, and posted on the ministry's website.

Geng said he had noted reports that the United States planned to expand its cyber-warfare capability but that they were unhelpful to increasing international cooperation towards fighting hacking.

"We hope that the U.S. side can explain and clarify this."

The U.S. security company, Mandiant, identified the People's Liberation Army's Shanghai-based Unit 61398 as the most likely driving force behind the hacking. Mandiant said it believed the unit had carried out "sustained" attacks on a wide range of industries.

The hacking dispute adds to diplomatic tension between China and the United States, already strained by Chinese suspicion about Washington's "pivot" back to Asia and arguments over issues from trade to human rights.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Mindanao power crisis to worsen during summer - DOE

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

MANILA, Philippines - Energy Secretary Jericho Petilla confirmed the deficiency in electricity supply in Mindanao will get worse with the onset of the summer months.

This, as several areas in Mindanao have already been experiencing rotating power interruptions since 2012.

Based on data from the Energy department, Mindanao has a dependable capacity of only over 1,600 megawatts of electricity but the demand with acceptable reserve power should be more than 1,700 MW.

Petilla, however, assured Mindanao residents the government has already started a strategy to ensure there is enough power in the days before and after the actual polls.

While there is enough electricity supply for Luzon and Visayas during election day and the summer months, the Energy department is also gearing up for the one-month shutdown of the Malampaya natural gas platform in November 2013.

Petilla says the department can assure ample electricity supply by that time but it will certainly cost more for consumers.

Three major power plants with a total generating capacity of 2,700 MW or around 45-percent of Luzon's electricity requirements run on natural gas.

Gov't, MILF eye final peace deal by April

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

KUALA LUMPUR – The Philippines and a Muslim separatist group hope to finalize a peace agreement ending a decades-old insurgency by April, a government negotiator said Thursday.

Manila and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) are working to put the finishing touches to plans for disarmament and wealth- and power-sharing by March, and deliver a final "comprehensive agreement" in April, Miriam Coronel Ferrer said.

"We are confident. There are only a few issues left. We will find a resolution. There is no deal-breaker here," said Coronel Ferrer, the Philippines' lead negotiator.

She spoke at the conclusion of the latest round of three-day talks between the two sides in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur.

President Benigno Aquino's government agreed in October on a road map with the MILF that aims toward a final peace deal by 2016, following years of talks hosted by Muslim-majority Malaysia.

Coronel Ferrer said a stand-off between Malaysian security forces and a group of Filipinos in the eastern Malaysian state of Sabah would not affect the peace process.

Dozens of Filipinos, some reportedly armed, were dispatched there two weeks ago by the self-proclaimed heir to a former southern Philippine sultanate to press its traditional claim to Sabah.

Jamalul Kiram III has refused to call back his men, complaining that he was left out of the peace road map agreed in October.

"The talks are driven by the two parties. The talks pertain to issues that have to be settled between the MILF and the Philippine government," Coronel Ferrer said.

The 12,000-strong MILF has been fighting since the 1970s for independence in Mindanao, the southern third of the mainly Catholic Philippines that the country's Muslim minority claim as their ancestral homeland.

An estimated 150,000 people have died in the unrest in the southern Philippines, though a ceasefire in place since 2003 has largely held.

© 1994-2013 Agence France-Presse

Sabah police won't arrest Pinoys in standoff despite lapsed deadline

source: www.gmanetwork.com

Members of the Royal Army of the Sultanate of Sulu who have been engaged in a three-week standoff with Malaysian authorities will not be arrested despite the lapsing of the deadline set by the Malaysian government, a television report said Thursday.

GMA News' Maki Pulido quoted Superintendent Shamsudin Mat, chief of the Lahad Datu district police in Sabah, as saying that Malaysian authorities will still give the Philippine government the chance to convince the Sulu sultanate's followers to leave the area.

The police official, however, did not say if the Malaysian government already extended the deadline it gave on the surrender of the Filipinos engage in the standoff, the report added.

In a separate television interview, Raja Muda Agbimuddin Kiram, leader of the Filipinos engaged in the standoff, meanwhile said that his group will not resort to violence unless provoked by Malaysian authorities.

“Kapag pumasok sila with guns lalaban kami, but if they come peacefully, we will accept them without guns,” Kiram said.

Around 180 of the Sulu sultanate's followers, some reportedly armed, have been in a standoff with Malaysian police in Sabah since early this month to assert their claim on what they call their ancestral territory.

The Islamic sultanate, which is based in Mindanao, once controlled parts of Borneo, including the site of the stand-off. The sultanate's heirs have been receiving a nominal yearly compensation package from Malaysia under a long-standing agreement for possession of Sabah.

On Tuesday, President Benigno Aquino III appealed to Sulu Sultan Jamalul Kiram III to order his followers to return to the Philippines. The Philippine government has already asked Malaysia to extend its deadline for the surrender of the Sulu sultanate's followers for “several” more days.

Sultan Kiram, however, maintained that his followers will not retreat unless the Philippine government negotiates with him on his group's Sabah claims. — Andreo Calonzo/BM, GMA News

Nation PHL, MILF eye final peace deal by April

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Japan may release data proving Chinese radar incident: media

www.reuters.com

(Reuters) - Japan may release data it says will prove a Chinese naval vessel directed its fire control radar at a Japanese destroyer near disputed islands in the East China Sea, local media reported.

Japan has said a Chinese frigate on January 30 locked its targeting radar on a Japanese destroyer - a step that usually precedes the firing of weapons - but China insists that its vessel used only ordinary surveillance radar.

The incident has added to tensions between the two nations over the disputed islands.

Japan will consider how much normally classified data it can release, the media reports said, citing comments by Japan Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera on local television.

"The government is considering the extent of what can be disclosed," Kyodo news agency quoted Onodera as saying.

China has accused Japan of smearing its name with the accusations, and on Saturday, the official Xinhua news agency continued the war of words.

"By spreading false accusations and posing as a poor victim, Japan had intended to tarnish China's image so as to gain sympathy and support, but a lie does not help," it said in an English language commentary.

"China has been exercising maximum restraint and stayed committed to solving the dispute through dialogue and consultation."

Japan and China have been involved in a series of incidents in recent months in the East China Sea where Chinese and Japanese naval vessels regularly shadow each others movements.

Both countries claim a small clusters of islands, known as Diaoyu in China and Senkaku in Japan, believed to be rich in oil and gas. Controlled by Japan, possession of the uninhabited outcrops and the sea surrounding them would provide China with easier access to the Pacific.

Hopes had been rising for an easing in tensions, including a possible summit between Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese Communist Party chief Xi Jinping. But the radar issue has seen China and Japan engage in a fresh round of invective.

China's Defence Ministry on Thursday said Japan's complaints did not "match the facts". The Chinese ship's radar, it said, had maintained regular alerting and surveillance operations and the ship "did not use fire control radar".

Japan's position against China has hardened since Abe led his conservative party to a landslide election victory in December, promising to beef up the military and stand tough in territorial disputes.

The commander of U.S. forces in the Asia-Pacific said the squabble between Japan and China underlined the need for rules to prevent such incidents turning into serious conflict.

China also has ongoing territorial disputes with other Asian nations including Vietnam and the Philippines over islands in the South China Sea.

(Reporting by Tim Kelly; Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in BEIJING; Editing by Michael Perry)